Archeology of Memory: Villa Grimaldi

Overview

The Film

A powerful, intense, and imaginative musical journey, Archeology of Memory: Villa Grimaldi follows exiled Chilean musician Quique Cruz from the Bay Area to Chile and back, as he creates his masterwork: a multimedia installation to heal the wounds inflicted by Pinochet’s torturous regime.

Growing up in a rural town in Chile during the sixties, Quique Cruz is full of dreams. Obsessed with being a musician from an early age, he quits school after eighth grade and leaves his home for the capital, Santiago, during the heady days of Nueva Canción, the “New Song Movement.” After the coup in 1973, the dream becomes a nightmare. Under the regime of General Augusto Pinochet, 17-year old Quique is incarcerated, brutally tortured, and after a year in different concentration camps, is finally exiled. Scarred physically and psychologically by torture and by the death or disappearance of many friends, Quique becomes silent and secretive, working menial jobs, deeply alienated from American society.

With the arrest of Pinochet in London in 1999, a creative door opens in Quique; after 30 years of secrecy, he finds the strength to tell his story through the passionate creation of a multimedia project using narratives, film, poetry, and installations. But it is a voyage riddled with obstacles; the creation of the piece unleashes raw memories of torture and confinement, cracking through the armor of denial and stirring up agonizing emotions. But Quique discovers once again the power of art to transform even the deepest pain; he finds that new dreams can arise from the imagination as healing begins.